


`home`

by vaguehope



Category: Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Angst, Gen, Goodbyes, Introspection, Nils Focus, Ninian/Eliwood A-Support Ending, Not Shippy However, One Shot, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 11:30:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16554941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaguehope/pseuds/vaguehope
Summary: nils vanished through the gate in order to seal it from the other side. those who saw him go will never forget his look of sorrow.





	`home`

**Author's Note:**

> a post-game one shot fic with spoilers for the entirety of fe7, focusing on nils' solo ending.
> 
> ninian's support is mentioned due to the nature of the ending, but i don't actually name her support by name, so go wild. introspective & with a focus on reflection & nils' development. thank you for reading. please tell my son i love him from me.

He knows there is no time for goodbyes, when the world is ready to crumble at his moment’s hesitation. He knows there is no time to look back, when he is the only one who can act. And yet, he hesitates. Once he turns to face the gate, it takes everything he has not to turn away.

_Ninian… I…_

_I don’t want to be alone._

It was his suggestion that she stay, but if Nils was asked if he was truly okay with this – then he would choose to say nothing at all. Perhaps that was the truth of him. Perhaps even his sister’s happiness wasn’t worth this price. Perhaps he was more selfish than she ever thought he was.

He takes a deep breath. The last breath of Elibe air he will ever take.

He puts his hand up against the gate, turning his head back for a moment, to see Ninian’s face. The image of her in the arms of the person she loved -- he tries to carve it into his memory. Ninian… would finally be happy. She would stay among the humans she loved so much. She would get what she’d always dreamed of.

His fingers flatten against the gate. Whatever the truth, if Ninian could stay asleep for a moment longer… then so be it.

He looks away, the thought strengthening the resolve in his heart, and steps through the gate.

 

It doesn’t exactly feel like ‘home’ – not like the place he grew up, though not where he was born. He looks out into a white space that is neither Elibe nor ‘home’. It seems he still has some way to go. Taking a deep breath, Nils turns around, tilting back his head to look at the gate. Once sealed, there was no opening it again. He would never see his homeland or his sister. Nor even… those humans he had come to think of as family.

He smiles, a soft and bitter smile. He had never thought he would come to think so fondly of a human. The boy he had been, such a short time ago, would have called him foolish. But the world had funny ways of working, and now he didn’t want to go.

Stretching his arm up to the top of the gate, he holds his fingertips against it, before sealing it closed.

 

The effect is almost immediate. Weight filling his limbs, as if he’d just spent all of his energy, he drops to his knees, forehead pressed up against the gate. His breaths come out shallow and thin. And slowly becoming choked.

Opening and closing the gate was exhausting. It was why they had been taken advantage of in the first place. It was how they had been repeatedly used and tossed aside, barely escaping with their lives. Feeling that sensation once more brings it all back. Days filled with fear. With helplessness. With pain. Days that he had only survived for having Ninian by his side.

If only exhaustion was all, he thinks, eyes welling up and spilling over. If only that was all.

 

He doesn’t know how long it is that he stays there, crying without moving. His back feels stiff and his neck begins to ache, but aside from the tight curling of his hand into a fist, he doesn’t move. He cannot move. He doesn’t know if he will ever move again.

But he has never been one to sit down and let the world kill him.

Closing his eyes, he reaches up and wipes his tears away, the edges of his eyes sore and red. He stands up, turning away from the gate, to look out across the white. However much he ached, he had to reach ‘home’. Though it hardly felt like home anymore. The years Nils and Ninian had spent away must have been a mere blink in the eye for those who were here, but in Elibe, time seemed slower. Or, perhaps, when every second was spent fearing for your life, time inched past with each one in mind.

He wonders if they will remember them, and concludes it won’t have been long enough for them to forget.

He wonders what he should say about Ninian.

Years ago, Nils could never have understood a dragon falling for a human. When he realised it was happening to Ninian, he told her as much. ‘It isn’t possible for us.’ ‘Don’t forget what they’ve done.’ It wasn’t as if the one she yearned for had wronged them, not personally. They had been shown only kindness. But if Nils said he wasn’t prepared for the worst, if he said he would be surprised if they were ever betrayed – he would be lying.

Even now, that hadn't changed. He could never fully trust a human. Not without a gnawing anxiety in his stomach. Yet it would break his heart in a way it would never have before. Now, he has the heart to wish that it won’t happen. He has enough in him to hope.

 

When was it that he started hoping?

As he walks across the white, he tries to find the answer.

Perhaps it was with Elbert, in the cold and the dark, whispering truths that no one else would ever hear. Whispering truths that they would never have dared tell another human. At the end of their rope, desperately seeking relief from their sins.

No, before.

What nurtured enough hope to even let them speak…

Who opened the floodgates.

Who told them they would not be judged.

 

He thinks of Lyn.

He had begged her for help as he had no other choice. He had never intended to stay with her group for long. He would save Ninian, and then they would leave. If Ninian hadn’t been injured, then he would never have considered relying on her for a moment longer. It certainly wasn’t something he wanted to do.

But Ninian’s life meant more than his own.

The words he exchanged were polite, but underneath them, no more than cautious courtesy. He lay awake at night listening for human footsteps. He never let himself be too far from Ninian, in case he regret it forever. In case he lose the only family he had.

He didn't.

When he met Lyn and her group again, he was relieved. He was… happy. She had treated them well, when they had nothing to give her, when any other humans looked upon them and doubted their intentions. Who would help children with no family, being pursued by cloaked strangers ready to kill? No human would. Not here. Not them. Or so he had thought.

 

He remembers one night, after Ninian had fallen asleep. It was usually her who fell asleep first – whether from her aiding the group on the battlefield in his place, or from his own anxieties, he would never tell. He's watching the horizon for any movement against the night sky, when the sound of human footsteps makes his ears prick and his heart pound.

Finally, they were coming for them.

He wasn’t strong, but he was quick. In the dark, he should have the advantage. Better to flee now, than in broad daylight, where they were sure to be killed. He tenses, preparing to bolt, calculating the fastest route to Ninian’s tent.

“Nils… can’t sleep?”

He flinches.

“Lyn?”

His hand twitching, he slowly turns his head back, to see her approaching. Not yet. _Not yet._

Suppressing his irregular breathing, he looks away with an empty smile, pretending to be focused on the landscape. “I guess. It was a long day.” As if it was anywhere close to the longest. As if this peace wasn’t a dream, one that would shatter any moment now.

“You two don’t have to help us, you know. You’re still a child.”

“No, we do.” His throat tightens. “You saved our lives. More than once.”

“And that’s enough. Seeing you two safe… it’s enough for me.”

“You don’t have to speak that way.” _You could do anything to us, if you really wanted. You could ask anything of us. Anything._ “We owe you. If we never ran into you, Lyn… we would be done for.”

“Perhaps… but you have both aided us as well.”

She looks at his face. He stares at her for a moment, before glancing away. “It isn't enough.” The feeling that their safety was going to be threatened was still too strong. It pulsed and screamed, in the back of his mind and in the clench in his stomach. They had offered so many strangers so much – performances, money, supplies, anything. Anything. None of it ever enough. It wasn’t something he could ever explain to Lyn, not without making himself feel more vulnerable than he already did.

But perhaps she understood his silence, more than she would have understood his words. After a moment, she turns to the sky, gesturing with one hand. “Do you see that star?”

Nils looks up, following her finger. “The bright one?”

“Yes.” She lets her hand fall, smiling warmly. “It’s always in the east. To the Lorca, that’s home. It tells us that we are never alone. That following that star will bring us to those we love.”

He watches her expression for a moment. “Uh huh…”

“I want you to know something, Nils. Someday, I’ll return to Sacae. You and your sister… whatever you find in your way…” As Lyn places her hand on his shoulder, he has to stop himself from retreating. “You can follow that star, and you’ll find your way to me. Know you will always have a home in my home.”

He opens his mouth, no sound coming out. Then, blankly – “Why?”

She seems surprised, before smiling, something in her eyes that he can’t pin down. “I love you both. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, no matter what.”

 

How long had he been walking, and where was Lyn now? Perhaps she was with Ninian, telling her the same promise. Telling her that she could always turn to her, especially now. If only the gate didn't need to be sealed – if only someone else could seal it, then perhaps he could be there too. Still in his homeland, by his sister's side, travelling with people he never imagined to meet. If only there was another solution, to this war between humans and dragons. If only nobody had to go.

There was no point in ‘if only’, not now.

His eyes are wet again, but the tears feel warm.

 

He would do anything for Ninian, but she wasn’t the only one.

_It’s alright, even if it hurts._

_If I can repay you…_

_All of you._

_Then I’m happy._

Reaching for his dragonstone, he closes his fingers around it. Human fingers – that produced music, that held hands, that grasped onto life tightly. Fingers that felt like they were his own, even if he once despised them. A form that he was forced to take. A form of the beings he hated, that hated him in turn.

He’d almost become fond of it. Of this body, of playing at being human.

He holds his dragonstone to his chest.

Remembering the faces of the allies he left behind, remembering the face of the sister he loved – Nils shifts from human to dragon, walking into the world beyond the gate alone.


End file.
